Sweet Oriental Dream
by Montale

To my nose the most prominent notes, from the opening right through the drydown, are vanilla & almond. ln the beginning these are slightly powdery, supported by a whiff of rose & a touch of smoke. The rose slowly becomes more "jammy" in the heart, & a deliciously edible tonka note emerges, becoming more dominant in the base. The sillage is excellent for the first 8 hours, but for me the most startling aspect of this fragrance is it's longevity; a full 17 hours after application l can still smell it on my skin! This is far & away a record for me; my skin usually "eats" fragrances far more quickly than this, even other Montales! But this somehow melds beautifully with my skin, & l find the whole feel of it immensely soothing, soporific even, which makes it a perfect sleep scent.
ln comparison to the only other loukhoum scent l've tried, Keiko Mecheri's Loukhoum Parfum du Soir, l'd say this is much less powdery, more rose-prominent, & altogether more rich & satisfying. There may well be a FB of this in my future.

29th January, 2012.

At first I thought I'd never get to like SOD but after a couple of wearings I've fallen in love with it.
You get what was promised: Sweet Oriental Dream is sweet but never in a cloying way, its sweetness is well balanced (Pierre Montale may have some "not so good" perfumes but, when he's spot on, he really is). With SOD you get the aroma of turkish delight: you get honey, you get almonds and dried fruits, you get spices, some rose petals... At first I got the impression that this mix was going to become sugary sweet and too powdery, but It never gets that way (thanks, Pierre).

It lasts and lasts with very good projection. I've got really good feedback with this fragrance, people with no interest in fragrances beyond the one they wear or they got for christmas have been asking me where did I buy this one.

In my "Montale Experience" this and Blue Amber have been authentic crowd pleasers. Thumbs up from me.

29th January, 2012.

For loukhoum lovers only, Montale SWEET ORIENTAL DREAM is just that. To my nose, this composition is slightly less sweet than my memory of the first perfume in the Keiko Mecheri trio. However, my reception of the KM loukhoum perfumes may very well have been affected by my non-expectations of super-sweetness, given that I had no idea at the time what loukhoum even was!

My suspicion is that some reviewers of SWEET ORIENTAL DREAM, too, lacked previous loukhoum experience. What is even more strange, given the name, is that people are complaining that this perfume is sweet. This is a rare case of total truth in advertising! I could definitely understand such complaints, were this perfume simply named ORIENTAL DREAM and marketed as unisex. Then any guy who purchased this scent unsniffed would have a valid claim in requesting a full refund. In this case, however, the sweetness is unabashedly and unapologetically revealed up front and center. If you do not like sweet perfumes, why in the world would you be purchasing something called SWEET ORIENTAL DREAM? Perhaps reviewers simply like to bitch in general. That would explain why they get all bent out of shape whether the name falsely or accurately claims to be this or that thing. But I digress...

SWEET ORIENTAL DREAM is a confectionary perfume with more almond nougat than anything else. The roses are akin to the ones made out of frosting and poised atop store-baked birthday and wedding cakes. But anyone who is actually looking for a loukhoum perfume should give this one a try, provided that they have a triple expresso and a pitcher of ice water close by! The longevity of this perfume is typical for loukhoum-centric compositions, at least those I've tried: quasi-infinite. Loukhoum sticks around until you submerge your perfumed naked body in a bath! That's a good thing if you like it, but a precaution to those who are testing for the very first time.

A fine loukhoum perfume, in my estimation, but it is what it is, and it's not what it's not. If you have not yet walked down loukhoum lane, this would be an excellent place to start (and, for many, to finish).

16th November, 2011.

I sampled this three times before my partial sample was used up. The first two times I didn't like it. The third time I did. I won't buy a bottle, or even a decant, unless it were a lot less expensive, mainly because it's just not the kind of fragrance I like. On the third wearing, I detected a suede-like thing going on that mitigated the food-like quality. Also, this isn't super-sweet, which I dislike. I guess I liked the fact that it didn't go to far in any one direction. It's reasonably natural smelling and technically competent. However, I can certainly understand disliking it, because it smells more like a dessert than a "personal fragrance."

25th February, 2011.

encroachment.overpowering to me,so i know its the same to someone im beside.thick and heavy on the sweetness

22nd February, 2009.

After reading the reviews, I thought Sweet Oriental Dream would be very sweet with a lot of sillage. But on my skin the sweetness is tempered a lot by the smell of nuts. I can smell the rose only in the topnotes. The smell of nuts is there right into the ambery drydown. I sampled it in the winter and found it was not too sweet or overpowering, but it probably will be in warmer weather. I've never smelled nuts as a note in a fragrance before, so this makes Sweet Oriental Dream quite a unique smell for me. I like it and give it a thumbs up, but I won't be buying a bottle of it. It's a good scent, but not the kind of scent that I could pull of.

1st January, 2009.